Exclusive | Chinese presidential ally steps down as Zhejiang chief ahead of power reshuffle
Zhejiang party boss Xia Baolong is known for his hardline stance, ordering a campaign to tear down crosses in the province in 2015
Xia Baolong, a well-known hardliner and close aide to Chinese President Xi Jinping, has been replaced as Zhejiang Communist Party chief ahead of a major power reshuffle due in autumn.
Xia had stepped down from the province’s top job and was succeeded by Che Jun, a low-key political rising star, state-run Xinhua reported on Wednesday.
A Zhejiang source told the South China Morning Post that Xia had a chance to take over from 69-year-old Meng Jianzhu as head of the party’s Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission.
Meng is widely expected to step down by the time the party gathers in Beijing for its 19th national congress, a meeting believed to be about six months away.
“Xia has Xi’s full trust,” the source said.
Xia, 64, was Xi’s deputy when Xi was party secretary of Zhejiang from 2003 to 2007.
He is widely seen as a key member of the “new Zhijiang army”, a term to describe officials who worked under Xi during his rise. Zhijiang is another name for Zhejiang.
Another Beijing-based source close to the party said Xia and Wang Dongming, Sichuan’s provincial party chief, had long been considered as the two front runners to take over from Meng to be the country’s top law enforcer.
But another mainland source said that even though Xia was a contender for the top law enforcement job, it was also possible that he would be appointed to lead the Environment Protection and Resources Conservation Committee affiliated with the National People’s Congress.
Xia became known for his hardline approach in 2015 after he ordered a campaign to tear down hundreds, if not thousands, of crosses on the roofs of churches in the city of Wenzhou, in Zhejiang.
The campaign was later expanded across the province.
Earlier this month, churches in Zhejiang were ordered to install surveillance cameras in an effort to counter terrorist threats.
Che, the new Zhejiang party chief, spent more than six years in the western autonomous region of Xinjiang before being named Zhejiang’s governor in July last year.
As a rising star, Che kept an extraordinarily low profile and refused to comment when he was approached by a Post reporter on the sidelines of the NPC in March this year.
In a separate report, Xinhua said Shi Taifeng, the governor of Jiangsu province, had been appointed secretary of the northwestern region of Ningxia, succeeding Li Jianhua, who would be transferred to another position.
Xu Qin, who spent nine years in Shenzhen before becoming Hebei’s deputy party chief and acting governor, was named the province’s governor by the provincial people’s congress yesterday, Xinhua reported.
Xu became Shenzhen’s deputy mayor in 2008, and was promoted to be the city’s mayor two years later.
